On today’s episode of Canucks Conversation, Harman Dayal joined David Quadrelli to talk about all things Vancouver Canucks while Chris Faber heads off to go get married this weekend.

The main topic of today’s show was the Canucks’ ability to score at 5 on 5. It was the subject of the Atlas Goods poll question, and was something Harman spoke about extensively. First, here is how Canucks fans are feeling about the Canucks’ 5v5 scoring heading into the season:

At the time of this writing, the majority of fans who voted in our poll say they are worried about the Canucks’ 5v5 scoring heading into the season, and these concerns were echoed by Harman Dayal on today’s show.

“It’s a legitimate concern,” said Dayal. “Last year at 5 on 5, the Canucks ranked 20th in 5 on 5 goals; they were 26th in generating shots. Keep in mind that includes Pettersson and Kuzmenko being so dominant in that top line role at even strength. Plus, most of that season was with Boudreau’s aggressive, fun, free-wheeling system, and we’ve seen that under Tocchet, they’re trying to bolster the group’s defensive structure and reduce the number of grade-A chances that they allow; that they’re going to tighten things up, and that means less creativity, that means less free reign to create and play offensively the way that you perhaps would have under Boudreau. You keep those things in mind and especially looking at the way the club has looked in preseason — again, I don’t put too much stock into preseason — but you can clearly see that yeah, this team looks a lot better defensively, but they haven’t generated a whole lot offensively, especially without Hughes and Pettersson, and that’s really my concern.

“You look at the numbers last year, and even when you strictly look at 5 on 5, the goals for and against differential — when Pettersson was on the ice at 5 on 5, the Canucks were +8 in terms of goal differential, which is really good, especially with the state of the blue line last year. But with Pettersson on the bench, which means lines 2-4, the Canucks were outscored by 35 goals at 5 on 5. Minus 35! They were obliterated, and that’s the whole ball game in terms of where you need to improve in order to make the playoffs — it’s non-Pettersson and non-Quinn Hughes minutes…That second line, that’s the X-Factor, that’s the wild card in terms of improving this team’s 5 on 5 scoring and becoming formidable enough at even strength in non-Pettersson and non-Hughes minutes to make the playoffs.”

Watch the full discussion about the Canucks’ 5 on 5 scoring in the clip below!

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